


Notre Dame de Paris

by DeathknightQ



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Aziraphale’s ever present state of existential crisis, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Historical, M/M, Period-Typical Racism, Pre-Relationship, lands somewhere between book and show, unbetaed we fall like Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathknightQ/pseuds/DeathknightQ
Summary: It’s 1819. Aziraphale is in Paris trying to gain back the ground lost to the Robespierre’s secularization. Crowley is tasked with tempting the Cardinal Alexandre Angélique de Talleyrand-Périgord prior to his installation as Archbishop of Paris. Victor is a religious young royalist living in Paris, about to be changed forever.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Notre Dame de Paris

**Author's Note:**

> Certain Bible scholars hold that Hebrew is the closest relative to the language given by God to Adam & Eve, a language sometimes referred to as the Language of the Birds. In Hebrew, spirit creatures are referred to in the masculine even though they don’t reproduce sexually, and even when they are described carrying out female-coded activities. Therefore, Aziraphale and Crowley use male pronouns when thinking in their “native” language and in limited third pov narration. However, when they are speaking French, they use the pronoun they most closely resemble at the time. This narrative choice is strictly based on the idea that a species without biological sex (and the resulting childhood indoctrination into gender) would logically consider gender a matter of grammar rather than identity, and in no way is meant to imply that trans humans are “really” their biological sex underneath.

This Temptation was a pain in the ass.

First of all (as Crowley had explained on many, many occasions since Louis XV), high-ranking French ecclesiastical positions were political positions. They were doled out based on relation to and the favor of the aristocracy. The aristocracy was neck-deep in all seven deadly sins. Oh, sure, tempting a ranking member of the cloth to lust looked good on the page, but if they really wanted to lead good souls astray, they’d be money ahead to let him set his sights on a poor country vicar and use a little greed.

Hell hadn’t listened. They never listened. So here he was, in the music and fashion capital of the world, tempting a cardinal who had probably knocked up three nuns already on his own. 

The second problem was that Cardinals spent ninety-nine percent of their time on consecrated ground. When they did leave, they were usually surrounded by a gaggle of priests and deacons and hangers-on. It wasn’t like you could just saunter up with a “come here often?” Some sort of suggestive public display within sight of the cardinal’s workspace was best, but you couldn’t just set-up on a street corner and start busking. Transient society had territories and bosses and rules and dues to be paid the same as any merchant’s guild, with as many interested parties. Using powers of suggestion to get a nobody like himself a prime corner was going to attract both attention and retaliation.

Crowley had started sideways, using a minor bit of spellwork to ingratiate himself with a mid-level musician named Clopin and his trick goat. Another little spell to pull this century’s dances from the musician’s mind and give his corporation the ability, some minor pushes on a few wealthy passer-by to encourage good tips, and after that he just relied on Clopin’s politicking to get them closer and closer to the prime territories. 

Well. Almost. Crowley had also spent more than a few miracles urging Clopin’s bosses to place them on street corners that weren’t in Aziraphale’s work space. 

While Aziraphale had no objections beyond the professional to Pride, Envy, Greed, Sloth, and Gluttony, Lust was a bird of an entirely different feather. Crowley had learned that the hard way. Several simple invocations of the Arrangement had ended in tetchiness and clutched pearls and furious refusals. Getting caught mid-temptation by the angel had been even worse. “Foul fiend” this and “unholy demon” that, and ten years getting ignored when he hadn’t instantly abandoned his target. When a non-target got handsy, Aziraphale was just as prickly. 

Crowley couldn’t abandon this temptation, and there was no way to dance in a female corporation on a street-corner without attracting additional human attention. Avoiding Aziraphale entirely until this stupid job was finished was really the only option. 

“Are you ready for this, Émeraude?” Clopin asked as he tuned his instruments. “If we pull in enough today, this will be our corner. Center of the city, just on the edge of the respectable areas, by the market. We can’t mess this up. This is the big-time.”

“Cr. Ow. Ley,” the demon repeated for the hundredth time. The position of the corner as a marketing location was irrelevant. That the cardinal could see it from his office window was what mattered. Once the check-box was complete, Crowley was done with dancing. Clopin and the goat were on their own. 

“An ugly name,” Clopin said back for the hundredth time, “hard to pronounce. The Emerald of Paris, doesn’t it have a better sound?” Clopin tapped between his collar bones with two fingers, mirroring the place where Crowley’s emerald pendant hung. “Besides, it suits you better than some stupid English name.” Clopin spat on the ground to indicate his opinion of the English. The Romani population had enjoyed certain novel legal protections under Napoleon, as had the poor in general. With the war over and the monarchy now returned courtesy of Britian’s assistance, all those gains had evaporated. Clopin took it personally. 

“The monarchy are the chosen of God to lead this nation,” Crowley lilted sarcastically. Not that Heaven had anything to do with it. At least he didn’t think so. Aziraphale certainly hadn’t been working any miracles on their behalf during the Reign of Terror.

Clopin spat on the ground again. 

“God can kiss my ass. What have his ‘chosen’ ever done for anyone but themselves?”

Crowley liked Clopin. Hell could hardly fault him for a minor blessing on the way out the door, to make sure he and the goat did all right in Crowley’s absence. 

Clopin strummed his guitar one more time and nodded to himself. 

“Don’t break a string,” Crowley cautioned. 

“Émeraude,” Clopin chided. “I have the fiddle on standby, you know this. If you dance like you dance, this is our corner. I promise you. Do I lie to people, Djali?” The goat bleated. 

Crowley stepped forward, rolling his wrists. He’d gone for a full female Effort: breasts, curved hips, even a fancy article between his legs, as the humans were calling it now. The cut of his costuming was impeccable, modeled after three separate dancers of no small repute. The only inaccuracy was the black and red coloration to keep within Hell’s dress code. 

Clopin set the pace, a slow tempo at first. Crowley clapped along, gesturing to this interested person and that to get them to clap along. As the pace picked up, Crowley moved into the steps he’d pulled from Clopin’s memory, moving first along the street corner and then through the crowd itself. He pulled women in to dance with him, and pulled himself away from the men who tried to grab his waist. He smiled at their pinching fingers and cupping hands as if he enjoyed it, until he finally had enough of a crowd gathered to use the corner for a stage.

He flicked his skirts and moved his shoulders, in tempo with the beat, concentrating on every step until--

\--it was almost like a pop, the temptation accomplished. He could see flashes of red from the window across the way. 

Crowley could just stop dancing and walk away, but Clopin’s hat was only one-quarter full. Crowley didn’t need to eat, but the musician did. Crowley finished the set, ending with a blessing on the hat to encourage giving and a blessing on the goat to learn more and better tricks. The blessings made his hands tingle and his chest ache like a human that had run too far, too fast.

“Brilliant,” Clopin said as they trudged away from the corner. Evening had set in, the alleyway was illuminated by the candle light of the surrounding windows. “Even with the boss’s cut, we will eat well for a week.”

“You keep it,” Crowley said. “I still have some left over from last week. You need it more than I do.”

“You sure?” Clopin asked. “These are francs, not just sous.” 

“I’m sure,” Crowley said softly.

“You are an angel among women,” Clopin said dramatically.

Crowley screwed his face up. “That was a long time ago.” He held his hand out, though, to stop Clopin’s progress. Two other men were entering the alleyway from another side street.

“Get lost,” Crowley said, bending his fingers into a claw as soon as the men stepped from around the building. “You don’t want the trouble we’ll cause you.”

The men stepped forward into the pool of light from one window. Priests. Well. That did even the score quite a bit. Tilted it sharply in their favor, really, if they started laying in with the blessings.

“We’re here to collect you. There’s someone who would like a-- private audience.”

“You could have asked on the street,” Clopin said with a false merriment. He set his instrument cases down. “We are always open to booking performances, even for a convent. Price negotiable, of course.” 

“Not you, _gitan_ , just the girl,” the priest on the left said.

“Oh, but Clopin must come. I cannot dance without music,” Crowley prevaricated, keeping his voice light and airy. If he could talk his way out of this somehow, maybe pretend he didn’t understand what “private audience” meant--

“It’s not a request,” the priest on the right stated. “The soon-to-be archbishop is a powerful man with powerful friends. Unless you want life made very difficult for your kind, you’ll come along quietly.” The Cardinal could do whatever he wanted to a Roma man like Clopin and the law would thank him for it.

Clopin went for it anyway, a bull rush to the midsection of the left priest. 

The priest on the right dived forward, grabbing Crowley’s wrist. Crowley pulled back with his arm and lifted his knee up, using the priest’s own momentum to slam his solar plexus. The priest gasped, maybe gagged. Crowley shoved, pushing the priest away. 

Sharp pain in his scalp and gritty pain in his face as he impacted the cobbles. The priest was underneath him, Crowley’s hair tangled in his hand. Crowley pushed himself up, bringing his fingers together to teleport himself and Clopin away, consequences be damned – a torn scalp he could heal, holy damage not so--

“Mary, Mother of God!”

The other priest’s blessing took him square in the chest.

His glasses. His glasses had fallen off and the other priest had seen his eyes. 

“In the name of Christ, I bind thee, demon,” the priest continued in Latin, holding his cross in front of him, painful and paralyzing. His compatriot let go of Crowley’s hair and shoved the demon off his body. 

Clopin and the goat were running down the alley. Saving a girl was one thing, but a demon who had bewitched them was clearly another. 

The exorcism continued, pressure building in every muscle and joint, pins stuck in every nerve. They were trying to free the girl from the demon, but since the demon was the girl, there was nothing to cast free. Unstoppable force, immovable object.

“Stop, stop, stop, you can’t, this isn’t a possession, stop--”

The invocation started over, crushing every bone in a vise. Crowley couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe--

“Why isn’t it working?”

Crowley tried to crawl away, but his corporation wasn’t listening. It just laid there, unmoving. Every breath felt like drowning in sand, so Crowley stopped.

“Maybe it’s too strong for us,” the other priest opined shakily. He held one arm over his ribs. “We should take her back to the Cardinal. He’ll know what to do.”

He needed to run. He needed to teleport.

His body hung limp, like a puppet with cut strings, as the priest picked it up and flung it over his shoulder. At least being carried like this, the consecrated ground wouldn’t burn.  
~*~

“Esdras! Esdras!” Victor shouted, galloping up the stairs loudly enough to be heard on the floor above and below. 

Ineffability required the pretense of humanity, which included living spaces and, unfortunately, neighbors. Not that Victor was the bad sort, oh no. He was a kind man full of enthusiasm for God and the re-establishment of gentle society in France now that the horrors of the Revolution and Napoleon’s tyranny had ended. Victor even dabbled in writing, quite skillfully, Aziraphale might add. He was just so-- enthusiastic. 

“Here, my dear,” Aziraphale called gently from the boarding house sitting room. He had set himself up for afternoon tea in the French style, with a delightful plate of madeleines and a hot cup of milk tea. He also had Bernardin de Sainte-Pierre’s latest, without having to wait for the translation to be produced. Gabriel’s order to miracle himself an understanding of the French language so he could operate in France unhindered did have its little side benefits. 

“Esdras,” Victor said as soon as his head appeared above the stair’s edge, not even waiting to ascend the rest of the way. “You must come with me, right away. You won’t want to miss this. An exorcism! At the Cathedral! Apparently the demon is so powerful the priests could not expel it, and so the new Cardinal will do so. Esdras, this is proof-- an actual demon! How can the secularists say that God isn’t real, with a demon expelled by the power of God right in front of them? Esdras, you _must come_!”

It was most likely a hoax. Only a discorporated demon could possess a human vessel. Crowley would never give up his body willingly, and he would have told Aziraphale first if Hell had ordered him to do so. Furthermore, French cardinals were political appointees, aristocrats mostly, and most certainly not embodiments of honesty and piousness. A hoax to drum up the faithful was entirely within their collective character and far more likely than Crowley possessing someone.

Aziraphale supposed it was theoretically possible that one of Crowley’s coworkers had dabbled and gotten himself caught, but that wasn’t anything a holy priest on consecrated ground couldn’t handle. Worse, Crowley’s hypothetical coworker would know that Aziraphale wasn’t human on sight. Aziraphale did not want to blow his ineffability on a pointless public showdown. 

“They’ll simply say it was fabricated,” Aziraphale argued instead, picking up the book he’d not even had a chance to open yet. 

“They can’t! This isn’t just some woman doing voices, she’s got snake eyes,” Victor argued, running up the rest of the stairs to grab Aziraphale’s arm.

“What?”

“Yellow and slitted, like a snake, Father Henri told me, now come on!”

Crowley. In his own corporation. An exorcism wouldn’t throw him from the body he owned, but it would be excruciating, and enough administrations might even destroy him.

Victor almost fell over with how quickly he went from pulling on an immovable Aziraphale to barely hanging on. 

There was already a crowd at the Cathedral, poor and middle class waiting while the wealthy and aristocracy were seated. Aziraphale didn’t hesitate to spend a miracle allowing him to shortcut the line unnoticed. He wove through the crowd and slipped past the door. Aziraphale couldn’t run the length of the church headlong, but he walked as briskly as he could without attracting undue attention. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered wretchedly when he approached the transept. Crowley hadn’t worn his hair that long in two centuries and Aziraphale hadn’t seen him without glasses since the Romans had invented them, but it was Crowley nonetheless. The nuns had dressed him in a long cilice. He was laying on a bier that was draped in white cloth. It was impossible to tell if he recognized Aziraphale. Even one exorcism would make it difficult for him to exercise any conscious control over his corporation for hours afterward. If they’d tried more than once...

Aziraphale couldn’t just magic him away in public like this. If word got back to Hell from a diabolically-aligned human that Crowley had been rescued by an angel, his own employers would destroy him. But away from sight-- Aziraphale just needed a passible lie to tell Gabriel. Saving a demon from being exorcised into extinction by a priest wasn’t on. Could he-- could he get Heaven to believe Crowley was just another girl? But then how to justify to Heaven saving some random human?

He grabbed a passing priest by the arm.

“Please, can I-- Can I see her alone, for a minute, please?”

“Who are you?” the priest demanded, not unkindly.

“I’m-- her husband,” Aziraphale lied. Humans had strange presumptions about unattached women, and he could not possibly pass for Crowley’s father. Brother was impossible to prove. But a forged registry entry-- another miracle and it was done.

“She’s a _gitane_ dancing girl,” the priest said skeptically, “try again.”

“We are poor, I don’t make much, and we were desperate. Please, we were married here, February 13, 1790: Azira Fell and Crowley, no surname. If the registry wasn’t destroyed, you’ll see if you look. We were young, but it was here, the Father was sympathetic, please.” Aziraphale knew he was pushing believability, white hair or no. It was impossible to pick a closer date. The Cathedral hadn’t been in operation during the Revolution: Robespierre had sacked it and rededicated it to his state-sponsored cult. Napoleon had brought Catholicism back, but there was no way to explain why none of those priests remembered something as unusual as a Roma woman and a British man. Not that Crowley looked Roma at _all_. Why they were convinced he was one, Aziraphale had no idea.

The priest hadn’t stopped looking skeptical, but he nodded and turned to walk toward the back of the Cathedral.

“What?” Victor demanded, equal parts confused and angry. 

Victor. He’d forgotten all about Victor. He must have trailed behind, riding Aziraphale’s wake through the crowd.

“You’ve been married to a _gitane_ for thirty years but you live alone and you didn’t even know she was here -- but you recognized her off the description of demon-possessed snake eyes? What’s going on here, Esdras? How old are you?”

“It’s-- It’s complicated,” Aziraphale hedged, “and it’s ‘Roma.’”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s Roma. They don’t like that-- other word.” It was a full fifth of his knowledge on the subject. He knew the Roma were fastidiously clean, that they were nomads due to persecution rather than choice, that they liked snakes for the most part, that you were not to use the G-word, and that Crowley liked them. The last was the only reason he knew as much as he did. The folk tale that redheads were demons in disguise was because of Crowley. Was the folk tale that the Roma were protected by demons also his doing? Was that how this had happened?

“You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not joking. They’re not actually from Egypt, you see, and the English translation of the word is used as an adjective for having been defrauded--”

“No, I mean ‘it’s complicated’ is all you have to say for yourself?” Victor demanded sharply. The lower classes were being let inside.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said simply. He took a seat as close to the transept as possible, where the registry-checking priest couldn’t miss him. When wealthier parties tried to make him move to the back, Aziraphale explained that the possessed woman was his wife. If they didn’t accept the explanation, Aziraphale repeated himself with more firmness. No one made him repeat it for a third time. Victor sat beside him, still silently fuming but unwilling to simply give up on Aziraphale.

The Cardinal was a skilled politician, like his nephew, who served as one of the King’s top advisors. Alexandre’s “sermon” talked extensively of evil having had its day, of heresies and temptations to sin dressed up as new ideas, the importance of tradition and faith, and of the old order washing evil away to bring about a new prosperity. He held Crowley up by the hair so the first few rows could get a good look at his eyes, and more importantly, spread the word of it. He then stood behind the bier so as not to interrupt the view of the faithful.

Then he began the ritual itself. An exorcism interfered with Crowley’s ability to control his corporation, but it was still a body. The pain response was largely involuntary. Crowley’s body screamed, long and loud and undulating, echoing off the vaulted ceilings and buttressed walls. Aziraphale pressed his fingers to his ears. When Crowley’s body began to writhe, limbs bending like a wooden doll and his spine arching like it had too many vertebrae, Aziraphale closed his eyes as well. It didn’t do any good. He could see everything painted on the back of his eyelids, hear it even through his fingertips. He could smell burning flesh. A few droplets of holy water wouldn’t destroy Crowley, but it would hurt, it would be slow to heal, and it would scar.

The ritual felt like it took as long as Aziraphale’s life to date. When it was over, the nuns arranged Crowley’s body into a more dignified presentation. Aziraphale opened his eyes and dropped his hands from his ears.

Alexandre walked around the bier and grabbed Crowley’s face. The Cardinal tilted the demon’s head back to get a better look at his eyes.

 _Please don’t do that again,_ Aziraphale prayed. 

“It is done!” Alexandre announced, sliding Crowley’s eyes shut. “She is free!” Two priests pulled Crowley off the bier. They let his head loll forward, his hair screening his face as they carried him away.

Exorcisms would not turn Crowley’s eyes purple again. Nothing could do that save Divine favor. The Cardinal was lying, lying after torturing Crowley, and it was a good thing Aziraphale didn’t need to breathe because he couldn’t. It felt as though someone had stabbed him in the intestines with a steel knife. He’d done Temptations for Crowley as part of the Arrangement, he knew the difference between Wrath and Righteous Fury, and this was _both_ , boiling inside him and begging for a spell. 

He reminded himself again what Hell would do to Crowley if they heard he’d been rescued by an angel. He stood and walked to the edge of the nave, as far as laity were allowed to go. The registry-checking priest was talking to the Cardinal. Alexandre left the transept, heading back towards the clergy exit. The other priest approached Aziraphale. 

“I’m sorry, but His Eminence says your wife will only be returned to you after she has repented of her adultery.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I am sorry to be the one to tell you,” the priest replied.

“Listen to me,” Aziraphale stated with absolutely no room for argument, “Crowley has done no such thing. There is nothing for her to repent of, and I want to speak with her at once.”

The priest shook his head. “She’s a _gitane_ who dances on the street corner for money. Of course she has. Once she confesses and repents to the Cardinal, all will be well.”

“It will be a little difficult for her to confess to whatever you want to stop the pain when she _can’t speak_.” Wordless screaming was one thing, but speech was complicated, multiple muscle groups working in unison. Crowley hadn’t even been able to manage blinking to acknowledge what was happening to him.

“You are obviously upset, and blowing this all quite out of proportion,” the priest said. “We are not putting your wife on the rack or any such nonsense. Sackcloth and fasting, that is all. Good day to you, and may God go with you, my child.” He made the sign of the cross in front of Aziraphale.

Aziraphale almost manifested his wings in the arrogant jackanape’s face. He turned and began heading toward the main entrance, weaving his way through the crowd.

“Esdras, I am sorry,” Victor began once they were outside. Aziraphale didn’t stop, letting his momentum carry him out of earshot of any of Alexandre’s cronies.

“Don’t be absurd, Victor,” Aziraphale said primly. “This has nothing to do with Crowley’s supposed adultery and everything to do with hiding the fact her eyes didn’t change.”

“But the Cardinal--”

“The Cardinal is lying,” Aziraphale said firmly. 

Victor grabbed him by the arm for the second time that day. “Esdras, stop. I’m willing to help you but you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”

He couldn’t tell Victor all of the truth. He simply couldn’t.

“Crowley’s eyes are always like that,” he said instead. “This has nothing to do with possession. The Cardinal is lying.”

“That’s why you don’t… bring her around. Because people would--”

“Do exactly this, yes,” Aziraphale said. It wasn’t quite a lie. Crowley wore glasses around humans because of this. Why Aziraphale rationed his time with Crowley was much, much worse than Victor could ever know. 

Victor hesitated for a moment.

“I-- Mother-- There’s a girl. Adele. Mother doesn’t like her, but I love her, ever since we were little. I have a place, that I meet her, out of sight. I think-- I think you could use it as a back way into the Cathedral. We’d need torches, food, water. It’s not going to be a short walk, or pleasant, but I think-- I can get you past the police, anyway, if not in the courtyard.”

Aziraphale smiled. “Thank you, Victor, that would be lovely.”

* * *

Lovely, of course, was a relative term. Victor explained that Paris had been mined for gypsum for decades, and that while the deposits had been exhausted, the tunnels remained. This was where he met his paramour. He hadn’t wandered far in the tunnels, but they definitely headed north and he’d heard from others that they covered almost the entire city. Some of them had even been used as ossuaries. Victor was certain those ossuaries connected to the crypts under the Cathedral. 

“Certain” was not the same as “been there before.” Still, if Victor was correct, Aziraphale could extract Crowley without needing a miracle in the first place. It was worth the risk. He only hoped they didn’t get lost. While Aziraphale could extend the supply of food and water to keep Victor alive, he could not give Crowley more time. 

Aziraphale had more raw physical strength than Victor, so he carried the small pack of supplies and the lantern. Victor kept the compass and a notebook. He wrote out a crude outline of their path on the pages with one of the new-fangled pencils, a rough count of steps and the direction of their turn. Even if they could not locate the Cathedral, they would at least be able to find their way back to the exit. 

They passed through tunnel after tunnel, turning north at every opportunity. The floor became less smooth, the walls more rough-hewn. The air was stale and tasted of dirt. Finally they reached a tunnel that curved south and began to descend. Every side-tunnel led to a dead end, left and right. Aziraphale’s corporation complained bitterly, feet and thighs aching. Victor had drunk almost a quarter of the canteen. Stranger still, Aziraphale could hear voices echoing off the passage walls.

“Perhaps we should turn around?” Aziraphale asked. Backtracking would make Victor’s note-taking very difficult, but perhaps if they tried the westerly junction they’d passed by in favor of this tunnel…

“I hear voices up ahead. This heads to the surface, it must. At will at least we’ll be able to see where we are in the city,” Victor disagreed. “Besides, if we backtrack and I miscount the tunnels, my notes will be useless. We’ll never find our way out. Starting fresh from a new surface exit is safer.” 

Aziraphale couldn’t argue with that. 

They continued down the tunnel, the voices getting louder and more distinct even though the tunnel was still sloping downward. There were a lot of voices, too, more than Aziraphale would expect even from an evening street, even on the Left Bank. Given how long the floor had been sloping downward, the shaft would have to end in stairs in order to reach the surface within the distance a human voice could carry. Aziraphale didn’t know much about mining, but he did know that human miners used carts to transport ore. Carts did not navigate stairs. A vertical shaft for raising carts on a lift would not have carried sound from the street so distinctly. There were people down here, a lot of people.

“Victor, I have a bad feeling about this,” Aziraphale said, gripping his human companion by the arm and halting. 

“It’s an abandoned mine, who would be down here? That has to be the street.” Victor asked.

“Someone who does not wish to be found,” Aziraphale said, taking a step backward from the voices. “We need to go--”

“And tell who?” Aziraphale didn’t recognize the voice behind him. When he turned, there were two men standing in the main tunnel, both armed with knives. He heard Victor gasp. He looked the way they’d been headed--

Another two men had stepped from the tunnels that had been ahead of them, now behind. One had a club, but the other held a pistol. A fifth man stepped out from the side tunnel. He pulled open the shade of his lantern, adding its illumination to Aziraphale’s. Sentries at an ambush-point.

“No one,” Victor promised. “We didn’t see anything, we don’t know anything, we won’t tell anyone, please, just let us go.”

The club wasn’t a terrible issue unless the clubman landed a lucky blow. The pistol was the biggest problem. A human could shoot faster than Aziraphale could cross the distance to bring his greater physical strength to bear, and it could only take one shot to do enough damage to discorporate. Worse, even if he did manage to neutralize the pistolman, that would leave his back exposed to the knifemen. It was unlikely a stab wound would discorporate him instantly, but having his throat slit was another matter.

“Oh, you’re right about not telling anyone,” the pistolman said cocking his weapon. 

“Now you just-- you listen here,” Aziraphale stated firmly. He still didn’t have a passable lie to justify miracle use, and not for the first time, he wished Heaven was as lackadaisical about supervision as Hell. “I know this probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but Crowley is being held captive in a Church. I do not have time to deal with being discorporated, not that I could ever explain getting discorporated under these circumstances, so you are simply going to have to let this entire matter slide.” 

The pistolman slid the hammer forward. “Crowley? How do you know Crowley?”

“I could ask you the same question. Suffice it to say that it’s rather complicated, and I really don’t have time to explain all the details now. The important part is that I am attempting to mount a rescue.”

“Get Clopin,” the pistolman said the clubman. The clubman nodded, fetched a second lantern from the side-tunnel they had used as a blind, opened its shade, and headed off down the tunnel. Victor sidled closer to Aziraphale. Victor reeked of fear and exertion--

But Victor was all Aziraphale could smell. Aziraphale took a deep breath through his nose. The sentries didn’t smell of soured sweat or stale sebum at all. He’d assumed the darker appearance of their skin was due to the low light. The cleanliness of the guards combined with how certain the priest had been that Crowley was a Roma woman supported a different conclusion. Furthermore, while the mines were completely out of sight of the police, they were also out of sight of the gentlefolk who frowned on encampments spoiling their view. 

After an agonizing stretch of time, the clubman returned with another man. He was older, mid-fifties perhaps, clean-shaven with close-cropped dark hair. The clubman pointed at Aziraphale.

“That’s the one.”

The older man – Clopin, no doubt – looked Aziraphale over with disappointment bordering on disgust. 

“She said I wouldn’t like you, and I don’t. What the Hell are you doing down here?”

Aziraphale cleared his throat. He had no idea what Crowley had told the man, best to keep it simple. 

“Victor, here, well, he believed-- that is-- Crowley is being held in the Cathedral. There are crypts beneath the cathedral, and these mines have an ossuary at the northern end. So we rather thought the two might connect, and we would be able to extract Crowley unnoticed. We have, obviously, become rather lost.”

“Connected,” Clopin repeated. Aziraphale nodded. “How many mines do you know that cut through a river?”

Aziraphale could feel his mouth working. He didn’t know any mines that did, but then, he also didn’t know any mines that didn’t.

“It could go under the river,” Victor supplied helpfully.

“That’s a good way to drown your miners,” Clopin said flatly. “I’m beginning to see how you ended up almost getting your damn head chopped off for crepes. Émeraude should have just let it happen, not sure it would have cost you anything.”

“How rude!” Aziraphale gasped. “And I don’t see you doing anything to help.”

“I didn’t know where she was. One minute Émeraude was right behind me, then she wasn’t. I thought she’d double-back here when it was safe. Now, I can get you onto the Île de la Cité without being noticed. I know someone. But it’s going to come with a price.” 

“Very well, since I can hardly refuse,” Aziraphale sighed. Creating money to maintain his facade of humanity was the one miracle Heaven didn’t keep close track of, since none of the archangels really understood how money worked or what constituted a standard income. “How much?”

“If we pull this off, you say your goodbyes, you go back to England, and you don’t come back for anything.”

It took several seconds for Aziraphale to formulate a response, and even then, it was more reflex than a considered reply.

“I beg your pardon?”

Clopin nodded to the sentries, who took their weapons and walked back along the tunnel to give them some privacy. Clopin repeated himself word-for-word.

“Yes, I heard you the first time, I just don’t understand who you think you are to make such a demand.”

“Arrogant limey bastard,” Clopin snarled. “Do you know how you get a Roma woman with no family who looks like Émeraude? One way. Her mother turns her back on her people and marries a gadjo like you. Then the gadjo takes her and the kid back to his family who thinks their son is too good, that they’re too good, for the mother or the daughter. They tell him to put her and the kid aside. Pretend it never happened. So he does. Or maybe he doesn’t and when he dies, and the family throws them out. The end result is the same. 

“Émeraude is a good woman, a kind woman, clean, who keeps marime like she’s been doing it for centuries. And still, do you know how much talking and promises and convincing it took me to get them to accept her as my kin, or good as?” Clopin gestured behind him to whoever lay beyond the corridor. “If she marries you she throws all of that away. All of it. And for what?” 

Clopin took a step closer, and poked Aziraphale’s chest with his finger. “Are you going to go back to your family and tell them that Émeraude is your wife no matter what they think? Are you going to tell them that she’s a good woman, better than any of them, and that even if they throw you out and never speak to you again to a _man_ , that you’ll stay with her? The money, the power, the nice things, let them take it all away, just so you can be with Émeraude?”

Aziraphale felt his mouth open, but no sound came out. It felt like there was a yawning void in his chest where his semi-functional internal organs used to be. It felt like the floor was swooping out from underneath him. 

Clopin had filled in a backstory for Crowley based on his own experiences, and even though Aziraphale’s “family” was made of angels instead of lords, Clopin had the truth of it. Aziraphale was willing to risk the Arrangement, but he would never, could never, parade Crowley openly before Heaven with the defiance Clopin – a human not even a tenth of Crowley’s lifespan old – expected on Crowley’s behalf. 

Clopin lifted his chin defiantly at Aziraphale’s silence.

“I thought so. Émeraude deserves better than being your dirty little secret. I can find her a good Roma man who will give her a family, a place she’s wanted. Not just carried as a shame. But not if she’s entangled with you. We save her, and you leave. That’s my price.”

Aziraphale cleared his throat.

“If you can convince Crowley to agree to those terms, I will abide by them.” Aziraphale’s promise was an empty one. Crowley wasn’t a Roma girl, he was a demon who had been alive longer than the Earth itself had been in existence. He would never agree to being married off by Clopin. Even if he did, Aziraphale would be duty-bound as an agent of Heaven to put a stop to it. Cross-breeding with humans had been strictly forbidden by the Almighty after the first time had gotten completely out of hand. (Not that deliberately preventing Crowley from having a family because of Heaven’s dictates did anything but prove Clopin’s underlying premise regarding Aziraphale’s priorities. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.)

Clopin nodded.

* * *

The boat Clopin’s associate owned was shallow on the draft and wide, with muffled oars. He was obviously accustomed to surreptitious night-time excursions – he had a long, slow rowing rhythm that was functionally silent. All of them were dressed in dark coats, with a dark cap covering Aziraphale’s hair. 

They launched the boat far from the Île de la Cité, keeping to the shadows of quays and ponts wherever possible. None of them spoke a word. Sound carried so well over the water that even a whisper could betray them. 

Clopin’s associate halted the boat beneath one of the bridges during the dark of the night. They waited in the damp chill until the night gave way to pre-dawn, shedding their dark coats and hats to reveal plain brown and black work clothes. They hid their coats under nets and bags that looked like tackle. Merchant ships clogged the waterways before dawn. The inbound ships vied for the best spots on the commercial piers before the business day began, and outbound ships rushed to get through the city before the passenger ships took up the available space. One little boat of “eel fishers” heading home wouldn’t attract attention in the dim.

A boat attempting to land on the Île would. Clopin’s associate refused to even contemplate it. He would get the boat as close the Île as he could and row slowly. The associate recommended swimming for it beneath the surface, and coming up for air as close to the wall as possible. Aziraphale had repaired the walls in Eden, lifting rocks weighing at least five stone as if they were papier mâché replicas. He didn’t need to swim to get across the gap, but there was no use trying to explain that to the associate beforehand. Aziraphale had simply stated that would suffice and had tried to bid adieu to his human companions.

Victor wasn’t confident at all in his ability to swim the gap and scale the Île wall, but he was less confident in Aziraphale’s ability to do so. Clopin – blowing the entire Reign of Terror incident entirely out of hand, in Aziraphale’s opinion – had even less confidence in Aziraphale’s ability to escape the Île once he got inside. 

Getting out, of course, was simply a matter of keeping Crowley hidden in the crypts long enough for him to get control of his corporation (and access to his powers). Not that Aziraphale could explain that to either Victor or Clopin, which meant that neither of them believed Aziraphale had an actual escape plan. Both had vehemently insisted on coming along. There had been no way to convince them without a miracle, and no possible way to explain that miracle to Michael. He’d had no choice but to bring the humans along.

“Come here,” Aziraphale instructed Victor as they slowed and moved to the innermost edge of the press of ships. They were as close to the Île as they could possibly get. “Wrap your near arm around my shoulders and put your other hand over your mouth. You mustn’t scream.”

Victor did as instructed and Aziraphale picked him up in something like a bridal carry. 

“You can’t be--” Clopin began, only to stand agape as Aziraphale chucked Victor over the Île wall like he weighed no more than a cat. (Which, given a Principality’s maximum load capacity compared to a human’s maximum capacity and calculating out the proportionate variance of the weight of a cat versus the weight of a human, was a fairly accurate estimation.)

“I said I didn’t need help, now do you believe me?” Aziraphale said.

“I’m coming,” Clopin said stubbornly, putting his arm over Aziraphale’s shoulder, any potential violations of code be damned. “You still need to get out somehow.”

Aziraphale threw Clopin over the wall with a sigh. Crowley would just have to wipe their memories, there was nothing for it. If only Michael wasn’t such a stickler, Aziraphale would have done it himself already.

Aziraphale nodded his thanks at the equally-aghast associate and jumped himself, catching the top of the wall and hauling himself over.

The two men and celestial being had gone over the wall at roughly four-foot intervals. Aziraphale could see Victor clearly with his angelic sight, but Victor was squinting. Good. It meant any clergy around would have difficulty seeing them. 

“You could have mentioned you were freakishly strong,” Clopin hissed.

“You wouldn’t have believed me without seeing it yourself,” Aziraphale whispered back. “Feel free to go home if you don’t like it.” The pre-dawn would give way to dawn light soon enough. Aziraphale began creeping along the low wall. The Cathedral was only partially-repaired. Most of the focus had been on the front-facing parts of the building, areas seen by the public. The clergy areas were still in disrepair. The garden was more of the same – the small food garden was mostly functional but the ornamental garden was a mess. Aziraphale used the thicket to provide cover. Much of the outer wall of the cathedral itself was still in disrepair.

Aziraphale paused again once he found a good hiding place. Using morning mass to distract the clergy so he could rescue a demon was-- not even close to being a proper angel. 

There was no other way around it. Aziraphale couldn’t be seen or he’d be caught and possibly discorporated. He couldn’t be seen doing this, either. Not by any servant of Heaven or Hell.

He shouldn’t even be doing this. Here, on holy ground, that truth simply couldn’t be ignored. Aziraphale plucked at the leaves of the bush hiding him. 

He shouldn’t be rescuing a demon, but Aziraphale couldn’t leave Crowley to this. He simply couldn’t. Not after the Reign of Terror. 

The cathedral bells had been melted down to make cannons during the Revolution. They hadn’t been replaced, so the clergy had to make do with summoning themselves to services. Once the priests and nuns had filed into the front of the cathedral, it was time to go. 

Aziraphale snuck through the broken exterior wall. He and his unnecessary entourage slipped through the ruined sections like ghosts, silent and intent. 

The laity wasn’t allowed this far into the Cathedral. Victor was no help, and Clopin was no criminal – smuggler associate non-withstanding. Aziraphale had to rely on supposition, following every hallway to a staircase, and taking every staircase down. They had to double-back several times. Aziraphale could hear Choir gave way to Mass, their precious hours ticking away. 

At last they found windowless hallways of cold stone lined with scones for torches. On either side of the hallways were thick wood doors with small round windows that latched. The cells. Alexandre wouldn’t dare keep a demon with the clergy itself. The farther they were from the stairs, the better their odds were. How they’d get to the crypts was a separate matter. Robespierre had used Notre Dame as the base for his Cult of the Supreme Being. It hadn’t been consecrated ground during that time. Whether through being tangentially associated with the Revolution or simple curiosity, Aziraphale could only hope that Crowley had explored enough to know the way.

Victor screamed when howling cries began echoing off the walls. Aziraphale startled just as badly. Clopin glared at them both and took off at a jog, not even faltering when the dim torch light gave way to darkness. Aziraphale and Victor followed.

The pitch darkness ended in short order, a lone torch at the end of the hall. It illuminated two priests standing in the hallway with the door behind them. 

Aziraphale heard the skid as Victor fell--

\--but it was Clopin. The priests were squinting into the dark, confused by the sound of running instead of the silent steps of a sister coming to summon the exorcist for some matter of faith. Clopin leaped up from his skid between them. He struck the right priest with the heel of his hand. The priest gagged silently. The left priest grabbed Clopin’s shoulders, pulling him away. Clopin kicked the right priest, a hard blow to the stomach that slammed him into the wall. Then he went limp and rocked forward. The left priest was pulled off balance.

Victor waded into the fray and struck the right priest again, a hard blow to the chin that dropped him to the ground even as Clopin ran backwards and slammed his assailant into the wall hard enough to wind him. The priest let go reflexively, gasping, and Clopin finished him with a sharp blow like Victor had delivered.

Aziraphale rushed past the unconscious priests to look through the cell door window. He could hear Clopin began searching the priests for the key. 

Aziraphale had expected to see another priest inside, not Alexandre. Alexandre hadn’t even noticed the muffled commotion outside. His attention was entirely focused on Crowley.

Crowley was still in the cilice. He was lying on the cell’s narrow bunk, beneath the cross on the wall. The room was lit with another torch. The flickering light made his hair look like hellfire, shimmering against sweat and tears alike. For a demonic corporation to be sweating--

Alexandre dropped to his knees by the bunk. He grabbed a handful of Crowley’s hair with his left hand hand, pulling the demon’s head back. Alexandre wasn’t angry that his exorcism wasn’t working. His expression was one of greed. 

His right hand groped Crowley’s breast.

“What is he--” Victor’s voice was saying from what sounded like very far away, as Alexandre’s hand slipped down Crowley’s side toward the hem of Crowley’s cilice where it was bunched around the demon’s thighs. 

Moving Crowley’s clothes aside, on this holiest of ground. 

“Mother of God!” Victor exclaimed. 

The door shattered under the force of a smite that Aziraphale realized he was casting. 

“How dare you call yourself a man of God!” Aziraphale thundered. Not the metaphorical thundering he was capable of with the pale and thin voice of this corporation, but the rumbling, directionless, overpowering sound of divine pronouncement. The walls rumbled with it, and Alexandre fell to his knees. The stink of urine was sharp in the air. 

“Please, please forgive me, it was the demon, an unholy demon, tempting me to lust. Please--” Alexandre was begging.

“This isn’t temptation!” Aziraphale grabbed Alexandre by the collar and slammed him against the cell wall. “Not after God knows how many exorcisms. And even if it was, you have free will. You _chose_ this. You, a political appointee, saying words at mass you don’t even believe. And now this. On holy ground, you do this. Have you no shame, sir?”

“Yes. No. Please, please don’t kill me.” Alexandre was crying, his face contorted into something like a scrunched and blotchy tragedian’s mask. “I’ll repent. I’ll never do this again. I’ll be good, I promise, I promise I’ll be good, please, please don’t kill me. I beg you. Please, my Lord, have mercy!”

Have mercy.

Holy fury was boiling in his veins, filling him to bursting, his wings singing with it. A divine weapon, that is what angels were made for, and Aziraphale wanted to do it. For one terrible second, he wanted nothing more than to burn this arrogant little rapist away into nothing.

Have mercy. 

The second passed. 

Have mercy.

“Never again,” Aziraphale breathed. Alexandre’s sobbing changed to weeping. “Not even once. I’ll know. And I’ll be back. Holiness. Charity. Chastity. Do you remember?”

“I do, I do, I promise I do, I will, thank you, thank you, my Lord.” 

Aziraphale threw Alexandre towards the doorway. Alexandre stumbled through and ran, his sandaled feet slapping against the stone.

Aziraphale turned towards Crowley, his wings brushing the narrow stone walls--

His wings.

“My Lord, I am not worthy.” Victor was prostrate on the ground, his hands covering his head. Clopin was only mildly more together, staring in mute silence.

His wings, glowing with radiant holy light from the smiting and he’d shouted in his true voice. He could hear the priests and nuns upstairs praying fervently. They probably hadn’t been able to make out the words, but the unnatural thunder rising from above would have gotten their attention. Alexandre was doubtlessly running upstairs to proclaim his vision, or else running to his quarters, where his priestly underlings would find him rambling incoherently about white wings, golden light, and a thousand eyes.

What an utter dog’s breakfast he’d made of this. 

“Do not be afraid,” Aziraphale said wearily, hauling Victor up by his forearms as Aziraphale had hauled up so many of his forebears. Sometimes Aziraphale wondered if the reason for ineffability wasn’t simple efficiency. 

“Forgive me for looking upon your holy grace,” Victor continued, utterly refusing to be lifted to his feet. “I am a sinful man, please, forgive me my trespasses.”

“Oh, bother, not this again.” Aziraphale clicked his tongue. “Yes, yes, forgiven. Now, please get up.”

Victor was like putty, dropping back to the ground as soon as Aziraphale had him half-way lifted up. 

“Just-- take a minute to collect yourself.” Aziraphale sighed. How he was going to explain this to Michael Aziraphale really had no idea.

Aziraphale approached Crowley. The demon hadn’t moved at all, not even an involuntary twitch. Aziraphale smoothed the hem of the cilice down Crowley’s legs, not that angels and their demonic counterparts had the same sense of modesty that humans did. 

They couldn’t stay here. Either summoned by the thunder or Alexandre, there was going to be a bevy of holy people coming down those stairs. A beat of Aziraphale’s wings and they were in Aziraphale’s room at the boarding house. Crowley was lying on Aziraphale’s unused bed. 

“Just go to sleep, my dear boy, everything will be quite all right afterwards.” Aziraphale lied softly. 

Crowley didn’t blink, or even move. His body slid slowly from that of a human woman into long black snake. 

“Child of the Snake Prince,” Clopin breathed. It was the first time he’d spoken. “Get away from her.”

“I beg your pardon?” Aziraphale said.

“Get away from her,” Clopin said again. He approached the bed and picked Crowley up, neatly coiling Crowley’s length. “Witches, magicians, consorts of demons, that’s what your lot says about us. The Snake Prince and his offspring may be demons to you, but they are our protectors. We’ll look after her.”

“Now you listen here, I have about had enough of your attitude,” Aziraphale began, his wings flicking back in anger. Clopin, quite recovered from his shock, didn’t seem to be intimidated at all.

“And I’ve had about enough of yours. Christians run us out of town and take our land when we can get it, run us out of town and burn our wagons and tents when we can’t. When have any of you ever showed up to stop it? When has God ever answered our prayers? Napoleon did, but your God ran him into exile so His precious king could have the throne and do it all to us again. But we’re supposed to drop to our knees and thank him for it? I don’t think so. The snakes have been better protectors to us than any angel. It’s ours to return the favor. This is none of your business, gadjo.”

Crowley had posed those same questions. Over and over again, with the subject of the question changing but the base inquiry remaining the same.

Aziraphale repeated the answer to Clopin as he had to Crowley.

“God’s plans are ineffable, it’s not our place to question-”

Clopin spat in his face. 

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say to that.

Clopin gave him one last look of disgust and left with Crowley.

Aziraphale sat on the bed and folded his wings away. Crowley was clearly safe among the Roma with Clopin. Safer than he’d be with Aziraphale once Michael came to investigate what had happened at Notre Dame. That would have to be enough.

* * *

Aziraphale brewed a pot of strong tea and gathered the last of the day’s croissants. Humans tended to recover from the instinctual shock and awe of encountering an angel faster if fed. Aziraphale pulled the small chair from the writing desk over to the corner of the bed. He balanced the plate on the corner of the mattress and handed Victor a cup. Victor sat on the center of the mattress and Aziraphale took the chair. 

Victor ate a croissant in silence. 

“Who is she? The snake, really? She’s not your wife,” Victor said as he reached for his second pastry. 

“The Serpent in Eden,” Aziraphale said softly. “Though she’s been other things afterward. The Snake Prince, at some point, apparently. We don’t actually have a gender, you know, not like you do. We can appear as we like for the most part.”

“You rescued the Devil himself from a Church?” Victor demanded incredulously.

“Oh, good Lord, no. The Serpent – Crowley – was just the mouthpiece. It was Satan’s will, Satan’s message, not Satan speaking. You know, physically. I’m not certain that Crowley actually understood what the whole tree thing was all about. I certainly don’t. God’s plans are-- ineffable.”

“The Great Plan is ineffable?” Victor sounded so much like Crowley during that first meeting that Aziraphale had to set down his croissant and take a sip of tea. 

The old response – “it’s beyond understanding and incapable of being put into words” – seemed quite hollow in the face of everything Clopin had said, both in the sewers and here in this room.

“So I am told,” Aziraphale said softly instead.

“Clopin said Crowley had been the Gypsy – Roma -- protector. If he’s the Serpent in Eden, an actual demon, how is that possible?”

“Crowley is an-- anomaly.” Aziraphale cleared his throat, but the whole story poured out of him anyway: from Crowley using the three days the Ark had stood open after construction to smuggle children inside all the way down to saving Aziraphale from beheading, the Arrangement, all of it. Victor had already seen the truth of it, there was no point in continued obfuscation, and once Aziraphale started, it was too wondrous to have someone to confide in to stop. 

“He’s a foul fiend and a tempter, but he’s also so very kind, and I simply don’t know what to make of it,” Aziraphale finished. 

Victor spun his empty teacup in slow circles on his saucer. 

“My entire life, all of it, I thought-- The aristocrats were God’s chosen. If we just took care of them, then all the good things would trickle down to us like rain if we were loyal. And look what Alexandre tried to do, in a sacred place no less. I was such a fool. Napoleon may have been right all along.” Victor set his teacup aside and buried his face in his hands. 

“They’re not, you know,” Aziraphale told him. “Chosen of Heaven. We don’t actually police humanity’s petty governmental squabbles. We encourage individual humans to virtue behind the scenes, that’s all. What they do with it-- Well, it’s up to them. How I’m going to explain such overt involvement I have no idea.”

Victor was quiet for a long time.

“Tell Heaven Crowley was just a Gypsy girl,” Victor said after a while. “Raping a girl in the Cathedral is-- well if it isn’t a justification for righteous fury, I don’t know what is.”

“Even if they believe it, I’ll be recalled anyway, no doubt. An angelic vision is hardly the picture of ineffability,” Aziraphale said with a sad smile. “This is probably farewell, Victor. It was a pleasure to know you.”

“You was well, Esdras.”

* * *

_It is worth noting that while Aziraphale was omitted entirely from Victor’s fictionalized accounting of the events in the Cathedral cells, Aziraphale did end up in another of Victor Hugo’s books. He was split into two characters: Jean Valjean, who defies the law to do good; and Javert, who cannot reconcile that Jean Valjean is both a criminal and the man who saved his life at the barricade._


End file.
